Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen fixing bacteria as growth promoters and as biological control agents against nematodes in tissue-cultured banana var. Lakatan

Issue Date

12-2013

Abstract

Banana is one of the most important food items in the Philippines, ranked fourth among food crops after rice, wheat and maize and being first among fruits. High yield of banana plantations requires enormous amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.This study was conducted to determine the potential of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and nitrogen fixing bacteria (NFB) biofertilizers as growth promoters and biological control agents against nematodes in tissue-cultured banana var. Lakatan under screen house conditions. Meriplants were inoculated with AMF (Mykovam™) and NFB (Bio-N™) during planting in individual plastic bags filled with sterile soil sand mixture. Plant parasitic nematodes, Radopholus similis and Meloidogyne incognita suspension were poured into the soil, two months after inoculation with biofertilizers at concentrations of 1,000 and 5,000 larvae or eggs per seedling, respectively. Plant height, pseudostem diameter and leaf area were taken every 2 weeks. At fourth month, the plants were harvested and extent of damage due to nematodes and the number of colony forming units of NFB were determined. Results show that AMF and AMF+NFB inoculated seedlings grew better than the control plants. AMF treated plants were taller, had bigger pseudostem diameter, larger leaf area, highest fine, coarse root and total plant dry weights than the control and the other treatments. Growth of plants infectedwith R. similis alone was comparable with M. incognita and the control. M. incognita-infected plants had numerous root galls. Root necrosis were observed only in R. similis-infected plants. AMF reduced root galls by 33% relative to those inoculated with M. incognita. Percent mycorrhizal colonization was not affected by either NFB or the nematodes. The roots of AMF+NFB gave the highest bacterial colony count (8±1.02 × 10 4 ) which was reduced by AMF+NFB+R. similis (5±0.80 × 10 3 ) and the lowest was with AMF+NFB+ M. incognita (5± 0.50 × 10 3 ). This implies that M. incognita and R. similis reduced the NFB bacterial colonies.

Source or Periodical Title

Philippine Journal of Science

ISSN

0031-7683

Volume

142

Issue

2

Page

153-165

Document Type

Article

Physical Description

illustrations, tables, graphs

Language

English

Subject

Azospirillum, Bio-N™, Biofertilizers, Meloidogyne incognita, Mykovam™, Radopholus similis

Digital Copy

yes

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS